It is with great sadness that I am accepting defeat for ResellingDO for Beginners.
What goes into hosting a ResellingDO
There is a lot of time that goes into selecting venues, working agreements, finding awesome presenters, and don’t forget the catering. All of these aspects take great care and effort, so that we can put on quality events like ResellingDO3, and NapaDO. But the hardest part is the leap of faith one must take to sign a contract for $6,500 (or more) for an event, without having a single ticket sold. Setting that ticket price is also rather tough. Unfortunately, shutting down a brewery is not the cheapest endeavor. So I needed to factor in that I needed to spend at least $6,500 (not including tips for the staff), so I established that in order for the event to be break even, at the $149 we set the ticket price at, we needed at least 43 attendees.
As of 29 July when I finally called it, we had sold 8 tickets.
To put it differently, as of 29 July, when I had to make the decision on the contract (they do give us a brief window to pull out), I stood to lose around $5,000, hosting this event.
What happens to those 8 folks that bought tickets?
We have refunded those tickets already. I’ll try to go a little further for those 8 folks, because they were committed to attending, some making the purchase the first day tickets went on sale.
ResellingDO’s going forward
As for the future of ResellingDO. Putting on events takes a significant amount of time and to put on quality events such as my wife and I strive to do, they also cost a bunch. Further, we’ve never had sponsors because I’ve always wanted to ensure that we have the freedom of what we present. Going forward, I will still coordinate events but we will limit it to the Mile High Reselling Club (MHRC) primarily, which will help us properly gauge scale of interest, and essentially the scale of the event.
Wrapping Up
It was very hard for me personally to come to terms with the decision to cancel this ResellingDO. Going into it, I had thought this event was going to be the largest we’ve had, given the great interest we saw in a beginner level event. We chose to go back to a venue that has treated us well and that we had received great feedback on from past events. What this all leads me to believe, is that this type of an event may no longer be the best approach. I’m not quite sure what is the best approach, but I’ll keep trying things to see what works, because I really strongly believe that face to face networking and conversation is what builds this community the best.
I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you this time, you put on excellent reselling events (I attended the first and I think fifth ones). You did the right thing.
@Kate – Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you enjoyed the events that you attended!
It’s not very easy to admit something isn’t going to work. Sorry to know this isn’t going to happening.
@Tim – you’re very right… Its kind’ve like the stages of loss, denial… eventually acceptance. But we had a decent run with 6 events.
Sorry for your time spent with nothing to show for it.
If I may, I think the event would be better off being held on a Sunday. I think it would attract more attendees. Saturday is hard to commit to for a lot of people
@Bob, thanks for your comment… We did do a Sunday and got decent attendance, but many said that it was harder to travel back home afterwards. But your point is taken, weekends in general are hard to commit.
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I am so sad because I was looking forward to this event. I went to purchase a ticket a couple of days ago and was surprised that ticket sales were closed. I hope it wasnt all the procrastinators like myself that sunk this event (and wasted your time). I dont know what the Mile High Reselling Club but I would be interested in knowing more so that I can be included in future events.
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Sorry to hear, but I totally get it.
I have written you an email in response to the one sent out and I was wondering if you had received it?